A massive but surprisingly dainty “elephant bird” once wandered Madagascar, according to a new study that hands the title of largest-ever bird to a new species.
that analyzed elephant bird bones from around the world.
Researchers spent several years collecting 950 shells from island sites, some of which they first identified from satellite imagery, in an attempt to supplement the sparse skeletal record of the birds. Wet conditions had worn away at the bones’ DNA and left researchers little to work with. “These findings are an important step forward in understanding the complex history of these enigmatic birds,” says Alicia Grealy, who conducted this research for her doctoral thesis at Curtin University in Australia,She partnered with Gifford Miller, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, who had long studied egg shell remains in Australia and elsewhere around the world.
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